I was watching The Colbert Report last night and his guest was discussing how, more and more, we are “alone together.” She doesn’t consider herself a luddite, but she is seeing how we are using technology to replace real human connections.
Consider this very common situation. You’re out having dinner. You might be with friends, your family, or even your future wife. Meanwhile, instead of actively engaging in a real conversation with the real human beings sitting at the same table, you whip out your smartphone and start tweeting about it. Maybe you update your Facebook status and post a picture of your appetizers. These circumstances are anything but rare.
Being Alone Together
This is what is meant by “alone together.” You are physically together at the same table with your dining guests, but you are each “alone” as you gaze into the glowing screen of your iPhone, Android device, or what have you. There is a certain disconnect when it comes to this face-to-face human interaction, because the faces aren’t even looking at one another. And it’s not just about Facebook and Twitter either. We see it all the time with email, text messages, and mobile web too.
Is this wrong? Should we not be doing this? Far be it for me to say that I do not partake in such activities. If you follow me on Twitter, then you’ll know that I have no trouble tweeting or TwitPic’ing my adventures around town. There is certainly some separation of my public and private life, but I’m mostly an open book.
The Online Persona
Society is changing. The profiles that you see on Facebook may not necessarily be representative of the actual people. It’s almost like we are all putting on a performance and we have this constant pressure to perform for our Twitter followers and Facebook friends. Beyond Twitter etiquette, perhaps we should give a little more thought toward real world etiquette.
For my part, if I’m at the dinner table with people who aren’t particularly into social media, I’ll be more inclined to leave my phone in my pocket. If everyone else is already tweeting away, there is no additional harm in me partaking in some tweetage as well. The key, though, is ensuring that you are not sacrificing the real face-to-face interaction in order to provide the online one.
Do you tweet from the dinner table? Why or why not?
I don’t pull out the phone all the time, except when there is a special dinner and I want pictures of the food, like at Disney. But you are so right Michael that we see it all the time. It’s not only at the table, but I see it all the time in my work and do it myself in conversation. I am connected to what I do through the smartphone so it’s a habit to look at it every minute or so even during a conversation.
I do want to point out that you took pictures of your date while you were proposing to Suzanne. Remember? I do because we all got to see the food except the food that came while you were “down on one knee.” 🙂 Just needling ya my friend.
To be fair, I didn’t *tweet* until she excused herself from the table. 😉
Wow!that’s really a cool post with a sweet baby here….